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Tuesday March 8, 2011

Prerequisites Success!

Yesterday, the Board of Governors approved the Academic Senate’s recommended change in prerequisites! This is something we have worked on for several years and are delighted to announce that our efforts have resulted in the Board of Governors approving Title 5 changes that permit the use of content review for the establishment of prerequisites. Our only goal is to increase students’ success in their courses and the Academic Senate is committed to providing support to curriculum committees and discipline faculty for effective implementation. Thanks to Richard Mahon for his work on this effort and to the Prerequisite Task Group as well as the Action Planning Group on Assessment that Mark Wade Lieu chaired two years ago. Beth Smith, Michelle Pilati and the Academic Senate Curriculum Committee have already planned regional training in April for curriculum chairs (see links below
to register) which will include new information about content review, associate degrees for transfer, and other topics. Chancellor Scott made it clear to the Board of Governors that this is an academic matter so the Board should heed the advice of the Academic Senate, and that not only did the Academic Senate support it but also the CIO Board, CEO Board, the Trustee Board, the Student Senate, ICAS, and others. Vice Chancellor Barry Russell and many staff members in the Chancellor’s Office have worked diligently to present the System’s recommendation eloquently to the Board multiple times. Special thanks to everyone who wrote letters of support and who came to speak to the Board over the last year.

At the start of the Board meeting today, the Chancellor announced a surprise guest today: Governor Brown! He spent about ½ hour speaking about his budget solutions. It was interesting that the first thing he asked about was how we are helping to streamline transfer; the Chancellor said we’re working on that and began to share the work of SB1440!

Catalog Language (sample) regarding Associate Degrees for Transfer

Vice President Pilati has worked long hours with CIO Melinda Nish, members of the Intersegmental Curriculum Workgroup and the Chancellor’s Office to develop sample catalog language that colleges could use, modify (or not use) for their catalogs. Please see catalog language document. We had hoped the language could be more explicit about the details, but discussions with CSU are still in progress.

Associate Degrees for Transfer

By now I hope you have seen the special memo I sent out last Friday regarding the status of the implementation of the new associate degrees (SB 1440
). We are pleased that most CSUs have deemed the first three TMCs as “similar” to their degrees. At the same time, we are very concerned about the response from San Diego State. While the problems of San Diego are alarming, we will continue to develop a system that works for our students statewide as we try to find a solution to the San Diego difficulties. (The Friday memo is also available on the 1440 link
on our website as well as under “President’s Update.”)

NEW: A blog on SB1440!

The Academic Senate has created a new discussion board on SB 1440.
We have been fielding hundreds of questions on the implementation of the new degrees. In an effort to reduce our workload and be responsive to your questions, we have developed this discussion board, which will allow us to share questions and answers statewide. Please use the discussion board to ask any questions you might have about the implementation of 1440 and the newly formed TMCs.

C-ID and DIG Update

Over 200 faculty from CCC and CSU (and some from UC) attended the C-ID-sponsored “come one, come all” Discipline Input Group (DIG) meetings on February 25 in San Jose and over 300 are signed up to attend the one on March 11 in Orange County. As a consequence, registration has been closed.

The groups at the February 25 meeting developed approximately 50 draft C-ID descriptors and six new draft TMC s (Transfer Model Curriculum) for degrees. More progress will be made in Southern California on March 11. The vetting period for the “Group 2” TMC (math, kinesiology/physical education, and administration of justice) ended February 28. Any finalized TMC from this round of vetting will be made available the week of March 14. The next set of TMCs (Group 3) will be vetted beginning no later than the week of March 14. Group 3 vetting will conclude April 11. At this time, Group 3 includes Early Childhood Education and Physics, with a number more to come.

Please be sure all of your faculty have signed up for their discipline groups on www.c-id.net. That way they will receive emails about any developments in their discipline.

Plenary Session

The deadline for registration and hotel reservation is fast approaching! Please be sure your senate is represented by registering today
. You should have received the program brochure in the (snail) mail and can now review the first round of resolutions that came out of our committees. Your area representatives have invited you to your area meetings
March 25 or 26. It is important that local senates engage in discussions of the resolutions, in order to inform the state level discussions and voting. Please note that a paper on “Implementing Content Review for Communication and Computation Prerequisites” will be voted on this plenary session. Please share this paper broadly across your campus.

As always, all the hot topics will be included in our program: accreditation, prerequisites, associate degrees for transfer, the latest Legislative Analyst’s Office recommendations, budget slashing, content review, program discontinuance, student success task group, and our basic skills learners, etc. We hope to see you all at Plenary Session in April!

Task Group on Student Success

SB 1143
called for the development of a Task Group on Student Success, which has been meeting since January. They just announced a new website with information and they seek input from across the state. Please go to the site and participate in the discussion. www.cccco.edu/studentsuccess